


Men out of Time

by Melethril



Series: Men Out of Time [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Genius Tony Stark, Lonely Tony Stark, Steve Rogers mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 20:38:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6344314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melethril/pseuds/Melethril
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reed Richards once said that Tony Stark was 'a future man trapped in the now. A prisoner raging against the slow crawl of human evolution.'<br/>He was right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Men out of Time

**Author's Note:**

> I read this quote and thought how frustrating that must be, and that - perhaps - he envies the man who actually is a time-traveler of sorts.

**Men out of Time**

 

_‘Tony, just try to look at it from Steve’s perspective. He has missed seventy years of history.’_

_‘Stop being an ass, Tony! The man’s been dealing with it better than can be expected.’_

_‘He’s a man out of his time thrown in to a modern world that is too fast and too loud, Tony. It will take time until he adjusts!’_

_‘He’s brilliant, Tony! Don’t you see how fast he’s learning?’_

_‘He’s never treated me as anything but his equal, Tones. He is far ahead of his time. Stop needling him! I know you think you’re helping, but you’re being condescending.’_

_‘If you were half the man he is, Stark, you would help him; not challenge him at every turn.’_

_‘Imagine you wake up after seventy years and tell me how you’d deal with it!’_

 

Tony bristled. He would _love_ to wake up in the future!

Okay, there was the human aspect to consider, and he was sympathetic about that; he would hate waking up and knowing that everybody he’d loved were gone. However, he would never be alone. Thor would still be alive, and there was a good scientific chance that both Cap and Bruce would live no matter how far into the future he traveled. JARVIS could not be killed.

He was not talking about that factor.

Feeling both angry and helplessly resigned, he stormed into his workshop pulling up the hologram of his latest invention (long-range communication devices that were small enough and made of an alloy not even Magneto could detect, which could work as a tracking device but only if activated by the person who carried it [Natasha would eviscerate him otherwise], self-destruction mode if removed by anybody but the carrier [could not risk them falling into the wrong hands], and which recorded vital parameters that alerted the Avengers Tower [or the carrier’s military base as soon as he got the device past the trial stage with a few more fail-safes built in] if they were less than optimal) and dismissed it with an impatient wave of his hand.

He called up the hologram code, which floated in front of him. Angrily, he stared at it.

Nobody on Earth had this kind of technology; not even the (other) brightest minds on the planet.

And that was the thing: It was not that they could not create it themselves. It was that they did not even think of it.

Everybody sympathized with the man from the past, but nobody understood or even accepted the pain of living in the now when you were a person of the future.

A futurist.

He had often been called that. Most of the time, it was a source of admiration, but sometimes (often) it had this undertone of impatience, annoyance, even fear and hatred.

 

_‘Stark, nobody needs this. Why on Earth would you insist on doing that?’_

_‘God, you’re insufferable! Can’t you just shut for ten minutes? Nobody needs to hear this.’_

_‘Stark, what you’re doing is dangerous. You cannot play with the fate of humanity.’_

 

Even if he were not a genius, he was still an arrogant billionaire with no shame, and people did not take kindly to that (as if faking humility would go over that much better. He had tried that one in the past, but nobody had bought it). Nevertheless, Tony wished sometimes that he were more in touch with the present, and not so much a man with a vision. At the very least, his tech would have some playmates. Gently, he put a hand on DUM-E’s head. JARVIS was unique, but so were his bots, and he wondered sometimes if he had done them a disfavor by creating them. They had to feel lonely more often than not.

People thought he was condescending in his treatment of Steve, and that he was being a selfish asshole. They were not wrong on either account, but more than that, he was envious. Yes, Steve had lost everything, but he was actually able to see a world he never would have encountered otherwise. He was literally able to witness what the future was like, and he received a lot of sympathy in the process instead of biting remarks. At least, Steve had once lived in the presence (which just happened to be the past for everybody else).

Tony had been out of time since he was old enough to think about the world and its potential.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. I love comments and kudos, by the way :-)


End file.
